Bill Leinweber

About Bill Leinweber

Bill Leinweber's mission is to help businesses and organizations grow by combining efficient processes with great customer and employee experience.

Bill is the Chief Experience Officer & Owner of Landmark Experience LLC, a consultancy, where he loves to help business leaders walk in their customers' shoes and devise memorable and meaningful experiences for both customers, guests, visitors, employees and business partners. After all, have you ever heard of customer loyalty and business growth without GREAT customer experience?

Bill's 30 year career spans retail and office products distribution operations in both small, family-owned and global mega-businesses. He has managed customer service operations, sales support, customer on-boarding and business intelligence teams while also serving as an internal consultant and subject matter expert. Bill has helped his past employers improve their customer engagement processes and achieve their goals of customer experience excellence and loyalty.

Bill loves to talk and speak about customer experience as well, so don't be afraid to ask!

“Watch your language.” In my mind’s ear, I can hear my mother’s voice speaking those words if, as kids, we got a little too rambunctious with our vocabulary. Mom also had a great way of making sure we could imagine being in the other person’s shoes. That’s probably why, in part, I have such a heightened sense of the spoken and written language in the spectrum of customer experience.

I often wonder if people actually stop to think about the meaning of the words they’ve chosen when addressing customers. The nuances are subtle. (Is that redundant? Can you have an obvious nuance)? Let’s put a bit more thought into the language we use with customers, shall we?

A phrase comes to mind, spoken by Queen Marie of France in the movie Ever After – A Cinderella Story. “Choose your words wisely, Madame, for they may be your last.” The Queen is speaking to Rodmilla (played by Angelica Huston), as she stands before the court after Rodmilla’s lies and deceit have been exposed. Okay, it’s true that customer experience isn’t usually that dramatic a life or death situation. However, the Queen’s point is that words elicit emotions within the listener. So in customer experience, shouldn’t we choose our words wisely and positively touch the customer emotionally? It may be our last chance to impress them.

I’ve gathered a couple of examples for your consideration. However, before I get to those examples, after reading this please don’t go writing my sponsors about “Bill’s total disregard for colloquial speech,” — Y’all. I do also understand that different regions and parts of the country and the world have their own unique words and phrases but, let’s set that aside for a moment.

I’m Sorry to Hear

The scenario for my first example is this. You’ve just received a shipment for something you ordered online. The contents of your shipping container were poorly packaged and the product got smashed to smithereens in transit. You call the vendor and, to the customer service agent, you explain both the unfortunate situation as well as your total displeasure that the product has been rendered useless to you on the very day you had hoped to begin using it. The customer service person says, “I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had a problem…”

Do they actually regret that you had a bad experience OR are they just sorry to hear about it? Is that agent saying they wished someone else had heard about it? I don’t like “sorry to hear.” Either be sorry, or be regretful or be apologetic but don’t be sorry that you heard that my carton got smashed in transit. If you hadn’t heard of my malady, you wouldn’t be able to help me resolve it, right? Now, I’ve heard some people claim that you shouldn’t say you’re “sorry” unless you were deliberately responsible for causing the mishap but I think that’s hogwash. (Is hogwash the solution prepared in advance to wash the hogs or the runoff afterwards? My money is on the runoff.) A better response is, “I’m sorry your order arrived damaged…” or “I regret that you had this bad experience…”

You get my drift. Show a little sincere empathy.

At My/Our Earliest Convenience

In this next example, you happen to be calling your janitorial service to compliment them on the great job they’re doing and you reach their general voice mail after hours. You listen to the recorded greeting before leaving your message and you hear, “Thanks for calling ABC Janitorial Service. The office is now closed. Please leave your message after the tone and we’ll return your call at our earliest convenience.” A variation on this theme would be, you’re calling “Mary” and Mary’s greeting says, “I’ll call you back at my earliest convenience.”

So, you’ll call the customer back when you’re good and ready? You’ll return the customer’s call at a time that is most convenient to you? Shouldn’t convenience be on the customer’s terms? Of course it should. This is a distortion of the message you, as a caller, would leave on the customer-recipient’s voice mail such as, “Hi Mary. It’s Bill Leinweber calling. I’m sorry I missed you but I would love to discuss your responses to our recent customer survey. Please call me at your earliest convenience. My number is…”

Defer your messaging to the customer’s convenience for the optimum customer experience.

You doing okay?

We were in a restaurant the other day and had just each taken a couple bites of our food. The restaurant manager started making his way, table by table, across the dining room and when he arrived at our table he said, “You guys doing okay?”

I’m willing to bet this restaurant chain’s management training program has a half-day module where they tell the managers how important it is to get out on the floor every hour or so, greet guests and schmooze and make guests feel welcomed. On the surface, it’s a great idea. Here’s the restaurant’s chance to have yet another positive, face to face interaction with a guest. But if “You doing okay” is the best the manager can muster, they have a huge opportunity here. “How are your meals, gentlemen” or “Have we made you feel welcomed and comfortable” or “Is there anything else we can bring to you?” I can think of a hundred things better to say than “You doing okay?”

Coach your managers and supervisors on what to say then let them personalize the message to their own personalities.

Your Call Is Important To Us

You’ve probably heard me talk about this one before because it is a pet peeve and I cringe every single time I hear it. I’m not sure which call center industry prodigy coined this phrase and why it seems every business on planet earth has copied it. “Your call is important to us” is both condescending to the customer and unimaginative. I cringe further when “Your call is important to us” is followed by “Your wait time is approximately 7 minutes…” If your customer’s call is truly important to your business, then don’t just say it is important – demonstrate it! At what point, after how many minutes on hold, does the customer begin to believe despite the claims, that their call is in fact unimportant?

The customer assumes their call is important to you. Otherwise, why would they even be doing business with you in the first place? Simple rule here – don’t say stupid things to customers. Instead, say something like, “We’re glad you called us today” because aren’t you really glad the customer called you and not your competition? Or “We’re looking forward to speaking with you shortly” or even “An agent will be available soon.”

What are you saying to your customers?

Re-read what you’ve written. Listen to the words you’re choosing when speaking to your customers. Of course, you should be doing more listening to customers than talking. But when you do speak, the words you use are an important part of the customer’s experience.

2 Responses

Dear Bill,
After spending 2 and 1/2 hours on the phone today with At & T, I am very much in agreement with you on the importance of words. I can go from feeling like a valued customer to just a fish lost in a giant ocean, based on how I am communicated with on the phone. Thank you so much for sharing your insights. You are a wise and talented communicator! Your colleague through life, Catherine

Thanks so much for the kind words. Unfortunately, your experience is not unique. The tendency is to train agents to be process-focused rather than human-focused. Processes are important, of course, but staying connected to “how the customer feels” remains supreme.